OTTERLO, the Netherlands — “This work is installed when the word ‘Time’ is spoken,” says a single white sheet of paper framed behind glass.
That is the full extent of the conceptual artwork “Time Spoken” (1982) by Ian Wilson.
In the corner of a gallery at the Kröller-Müller Museum in De Hoge Veluwe National Park, we quietly whisper, “Time.” And we have “installed” a work of art.
Such is the comical and sometimes philosophical nature of many of the works on display in this exhibition, “Not in So Many Words,” on view until May 10.
“Not in So Many Words” focuses on art that employs text — letters, words, sentences, fragments and the spoken word — and undermines the notion that art is a primarily visual medium.